“Encryption is inexorably tied to our national interests. It is a safeguard for our personal secrets and economic prosperity. It helps to prevent crime and protect national security." – A report from the bipartisan House Judiciary Committee & House Energy and Commerce Committee

MegaChat: a Browser-Based, Encrypted Voice and Video Chat App

MegaChat claims to be a secure alternative to Skype, offering browser-based voice and video chat. The application is now available although the first release seems to have a few remaining bugs.

The producing company’s background has been controversial, at best. Flamboyant CEO Kim Dotcom (an obvious pseudonym) started with Megaupload. He was soon arrested by New Zealand authorities for encouraging copyright violations. Charges were later dropped. He has since added several new services, most of which are designed to improve privacy and security concerns about existing software.

With MegaChat, you can send your decryption key to other people to allow them to access your files. The voice and video chat software also uses similar encryption, providing a secure alternative to Microsoft-owned Skype, which has been targeted for surveillance by the National Security Agency.

One of the biggest advantages of MegaChat is that you don’t have to install software to use it. Instead, you simply add an extension to Chrome or Firefox to enable secure chats as well as secure file transfers.

Subscribe to these articles by email

Want to receive a once-a-day email message containing all the new articles published here in the previous 24 hours? (You can instantly unsubscribe at any time by clicking on a
link in each email message you receive.) The email service is free.